I don't give a f***

One thing I've noticed, especially over the last few days, is a rise in apathy afflicting almost everyone i know. I read the chapter for today, and i thought to my self, what the hell am i going to write about? most of the time, there is asomething in the chapter that triggers at least something i can write about, but i just read and highlighted and didn't care. I read Rob's blog, and thought, cool, it's not just me. I'm not blaming Rutherford, the chapter did its thing the same way they all do, but i just don't give a damn.

I've realized and come to grips that I am the walking stereotype of my generation. If something isnt blaring techno music, covered in flashing neon lights, or fed directly to me, i'm not going to notice or care about it. I generally don't concern myself with global issues or anything, so - i dont care, but think about it, media coverage of events is the only way we hear about it. I think that as a society, we rely entirely on the media (news shows, internet, newspaper, magazines) to give us all of the information we would want to know - and it better have a picture of a sweet explosion or at least something to hook me. So along comes this war in Iraq. We have all these cool bombs and jets and tanks and guns and missles- and we're using them (hey, these are ok because at least we're stopping a madman from maybe possibly almost using them if he might have had them---right?). Im sold. You feed me explosion after gunshot after explosion you better bet I'm not changing the channel, at least until some boring suit comes on and starts rambling about policy. That's about the time that i realize I'm missing the Daily Show, and turn the channel.

If you're reading this, and you can't at least relate to it, you're either not being honest with yourself, or you can probably name a few people like this.

Like i said, i know what grabs my attention, thats not to say that i'm happy or proud of what does, but at least i'm honest. So, given what i just said, consider the guy in the book who would watch hours of war coverage on tv, of course news networks are going to try to cram more explosions and riots into their programs than their competitors. Duh, right? Well, if these news networks (keep in mind their lust for ratings) are spending so much time covering the war, and showing things on fire-----what are they not covering. Like i said before the media tells us what to care about, and if it becomes so centered on one thing, its gonna cut the other things out. think about it- with all the bullshit going on in the world right now, and all the problems that deserve our attention - America responds by getting into heated debate over...if it's wrong to pull the life support from a complete stranger. Well, the painful debate over right and wrong continued forever. and the media forced us to care. whether its right or wrong, we don't know, but you know what i think is wrong? The fact that we spent so much time, effort and money over this, when there are so many other things happening. Example: during the cold war, America, not only financially, but militarily too, supported dictatorships throughout latin america. The US was so concerned with keeping the Reds out, that they forgot to put Democracy in. This is a very true thing that happened, and we all paid for it with our tax dollars, and most of these dictators made Saddam look like a stand up chap. Meanwhile in the states we glance over the headline about "dscrepancies with foriegn realtions" to read the one that says "our bombs are bigger than Russia's." This is bad, pull the damn plug, america.